JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR PT 6

PART 6

The London merchant "H.F." continues his account by puzzling over the way the infection behaves & looking at different methods of warding it off & screening for it.

Here I ought to leave a remark for posterity that it was not from sick people only the plague was received from, but the well! That is, such as had it in their blood yet did not show the consequences in their countenances, nay, were not even sensible of it.

I knew a man who had a wound in his leg that would smart and look pale in company with any such as were not sound, and so he would rise up & say “Friends, there is someone in the room that has the plague” & so immediately break up the company.

The acute penetrating nature of the disease was such that the infection was received imperceptibly from somebody that was infected before. One man may give the plague to 1,000 people & they to greater numbers in proportion…

… and perhaps themselves not know of it till they found to their unspeakable surprise the tokens come upon them, gangrenous spots or mortified flesh in small knobs as broad as a silver penny & hard as a piece of horn, after which they seldom lived six hours.

Yet they must have been infected to a high degree some time before & must have been so some time, & consequently their breath, their sweat, their very clothes were contagious for many days before.

It may be proper to ask here how long it may be supposed men might have the contagion before it discovered itself. I believe the most experienced physicians cannot answer this question. It may lie dormant in the blood-vessels a considerable time.

I cannot but think they cannot be contagious to others above 15 or 16 days. When in a shut up house nobody appeared to be ill for 16 to 18 days after, people would not be much afraid of them, but rather think them fortified the better having not been vulnerable when the enemy came to their house.

It is my opinion as a prescription that the best physic against the plague is to run away from it. People encourage themselves by saying God may keep us in the midst of danger & this kept thousands in town whose carcases went into the great pit by cartloads

On any future occasion of this they should consider of separating the people into smaller bodies & removing them in time from one another for the plague is like a great fire if it begins in a lone house can only burn that house where it begins.

If then the blow is insensibly striking — if the arrow flies thus unseen & cannot be discovered — to what purpose are all the schemes for shutting up or removing the sick people? Thousands of people seem to be well all that while carrying death with them.

This frequently puzzled our physicians, knowing not how to discover the sick from the sound. My friend Dr Heath was of opinion that it might be known by the smell of their breath. But who durst smell that breath to gain his information?

I have heard also that a person breathing on a piece of glass, & the breath condensing there, living creatures might be seen by a microscope, of strange, monstrous and frightful shapes. But we had no microscopes at that time, as I remember.

Some have proposed that the breath of such a person would poison and instantly kill a bird, and some that they should breathe hard upon warm water & thereby leave an unusual scum on it, or upon other things of a glutinous substance apt to support a scum.

People were exceeding shy of all that came near. In Aldgate church one suddenly fancies she smelt an ill smell, whispers her suspicion to the next, then rises & goes out of the pew. It immediately took with the next & adjoining pews who all went out.

Every mouth was filled with one preparation or another to prevent infection by the breath of others so that a church full of people was like a smelling bottle. One corner was all perfumes, another aromatics, balsamics, drugs & herbs, another salts & spirits.

But it was impossible to beat anything of caution into the heads of the poor. They went on with the usual impetuosity of their tempers, full of outcries and lamentations when taken with plague, but madly careless of themselves & obstinate while they were well.

Where they could get employment they pushed into the most dangerous kind of business & if they were spoken to their answer would be “I had as good have the plague as die of want. I have no work. What could I do? I must do this or beg”

This adventurous conduct of the poor was that which brought the plague among them in a most furious manner; and joined with the distress of their circumstances this was why they died so by heaps.

I cannot say I could observe one jot of better husbandry among the labouring poor while they were getting money as there was before, but as extravagant and thoughtless for tomorrow as ever, so when sick they were in the utmost distress as well for lack of food as of health.